During the manufacture of prophylactic products, such as condoms, gloves, finger cots, and so forth, such devices or products are typically formed on a mandrel having the shape of the desired product. The mandrel is typically coated with prophylactic material in a liquid state, followed by curing or drying of the material upon the mandrel to form the prophylactic product. After drying or curing the material, the product is often removed from the mandrel by rolling the product up and off the mandrel. Prophylactic products such as condoms require 100% testing to insure that the condom is free of holes that could permit undesirable germs, virus, or other material to escape from or enter into the interior of the condom. Also, prophylactic products, such as surgical gloves require testing after manufacture to insure there are no holes that would permit germs or viruses to pass from the glove interior to the outside, or to pass from outside into the glove interior to the skin of a user's hand or fingers. In order to properly test a prophylactic device for holes, the device may first be fully unrolled to permit standardized testing to be performed, such as electronic testing, and so forth.
The unrolling of a prophylactic device to permit testing of the device can be performed by hand. However, this is very labor intensive, and time consuming. Accordingly, it is desirable to automate the unrolling process for the prophylactic devices.